To best the scores of Ackens and the others, I mainly needed more cities and population, while having as many Future Techs and Great Works at the end as I could as auxiliary score padders.
Here were my considerations:
1) Meta-strategies:
A Time game is such a different beast from other victories that careful play in the beginning is an enormous consideration, especially on a Standard size map. The turn times with 150-200 cities become ridiculously long late game, as I learned from posts in this gauntlet forum and in my own ridiculous Deity Marathon huge tiny island map effort a couple years back. Once you start the "big expansion", there is no turning back. Therefore, I decided in this game to take the early game slow and thoughtfully. On Quick, it is easy to blitz through the early game-- but one mental lapse means choosing the wrong pantheon or such, forgetting to target a key early wonder, or pushing next turn so much through a flawed exploration pattern to miss an AI civ and delay founding the World Congress. I have played enough games I have had to abandon because of these types of mistakes
Did not want to make these common quick game errors that I would regret in turn 250 of a monster time commitment game, so I voluntarily pulled myself away from the game and the computer every 40 -50 turns in the early game, so i could reassess the current game state thoughtfully when getting back to the game before pushing forward. 50 turns is a lot of progress on Quick so reasonable to take a break with, but not too much progress that I would let errant play get out of hand.
My other meta strategy was to NOT shut off the game or computer once the big expansion started. From posts here and my Deity Huge experience, loading such massive saves can be a huge problem, so i did not want to have to load a 150-200 city game save if I could help it. This proved prescient as I returned to my PC one time to find the dreaded "Steam update has loaded" crash had occurred at around T265 or so. For whatever reason, with my Windows 10 PC, whenever Steam pushes an update, it tanks the game in progress on my PC at the time. When I tried to load the latest Autosave, it would not load. Nor would it load the previous few turns autosave or regular backup saves. I had to go back several turns more to find a save that would actually load, so I did have to replay like 6-8 turns. Had no choice, and will send a crash report in on this. But the turns were simply "grow, set build queue" at that point, so no big deal to replicate exactly. Takeaway-- if you are trying this gauntlet, use a high-end computer, and leave the game running if you can after your big expansion. You may never be able to load late game saves.
2) Growth/Expansion
The main source of debate in Time Victory games is expansion strategy. Do you (a) play a small 4-6 city science-focused game early until as early a maxed-out culture World's Fair as you can manage, do you (b) expand out to 8-12 cities early, which can slow science and culture acquisition a bit and perhaps lead to a less effective Worlds Fair or later big expansion, or do you (c) just expand as big as possible as fast as possible?
I think (c) is clearly the worst choice, as truly constant expansion wreaks havoc on optimum tech researching, obtaining happiness/growth policies asap, and building the national wonders. As Cromagnus, Acken and others posited here, a controlled city count early leading to early as possible World's Fair and mega-expansion is the way to go.
After reading the posts in this gauntlet forum, my main takeaway was that everyone went way too small an empire in their science-focused starts. Cromagnus went 4 cities, and Acken 5 cities early on for example. On Chieftain?? I have found that on Chieftain level, optimal science games happen with a minimum of 8 cities. Happiness is so little an early game concern that 8-10 cities is always the goal.
I wanted to get 8-12 efficient cities up as soon as possible. This is doable on Chieftain because happiness is not a big issue early. It has many benefits. You can play a "normal" Science game pretty much with 8-12 cities instead of 4-6, thus juicing up midgame science. Also, you have more cities building all the key early-midgame wonders; with fewer cities, build queues are more crowded. More early cities pumps out more units for eventual conquest, and ultimately more workers and settlers for the eventual big expansion.
My planned method to get to 8-12 cities as soon as possible? Build early archers to conquer the 1-3 nearest AI capitals and go pure Liberty early on.
3) Social Policies
Whereas the conventional wisdom for the gauntlet seemed to have been to go a Liberty/Tradition mix early (get the free Settler in Liberty, then pound Tradition). I thought that pure Liberty early was the way to go. And also, not just rushing to the free Settler. In a Time game where you want to get as many Social policies as possible for happiness, going to Representation (future cities built raise social policy requirements 33% less than normal) before going for Collective Rule (free Settler and increased Stettler production in capital) is pretty key in my view.
In my first abandoned game, I had established a good policy timing. Research Archery first and build/buy/hutupgrade 4-5 archers as soon as possible. Send those out to conquer nearby capitals with the initial warrior and scouts. Going - Liberty opener, Citizenship (free worker), Representation, then down the left side of Liberty to Collective rule means a later Collective rule, but this lets your capital go scouts, archers, monument, granary, Great Library, National College before cranking out settlers! Your very early free worker upgrades the key capital tiles. Works fabulously!! Meanwhile, your archers (which you can upgrade to composite bowmen with early accumulated gold soon by beelining Construction) can take out a nearby 2-3 cities you can puppet while building the National College, so your growth is not really slowed much.
In my first abandoned game I had found that policy acquisition slows a lot with many early cities, so it was impossible to finish Tradition in a reasonable time to get the free aqueducts/growth boost. That was a nonprioroty as you could research engineering and build aqueducts in buff early cities much faster than waiting on finishing Tradition, so finishing Tradition is a low priority.
I held off on finishing Liberty with Meritocracy as it was unneeded early. Went Tradition opener, Oligarchy as I thought i could hit the right side a bit faster than I actually was able to, then Aristocracy for the early Wonder push. I filled out a bit more of Tradition before hitting Patronage opener (for vitally needed Forbidden Palace) Rationalism opener/Secularism (for science) , Piety opener at some point in this mix (faster shrine/temples and failed attempt to get Great Mosque), finishing Liberty (Meritocracy needed), Monarchy in Tradition (for needed happiness) and then I was at Ideology I think.
I was up against the happiness threshold at many points with 10 fast growing cities and I really needed Forbidden Palace for happiness and to pass Culture Heritage Sites on the first World Congress vote, so happiness informed my Social Policy order after that initial rush into most of Liberty and then the first 4 Tradition policies.
Ideology
Freedom is a clear winner over Order. At Chieftain, you can start big expansion early and have time to grow well, so the Order policy starting new cities with extra population does not help all that much. Civil Society in Freedom cutting food requirements for specialists translates to + 5 population per city by Cromagnus' old estimates, so at 200 or so cities, that trumps anything Order has to offer.
After hitting the free Civil Society and Avant Garde (increased GP production) in Freedom, went to the monster happiness policy in Freedom next which solved my happiness issues until the giant expansion. After that, opened Commerce for Big Ben to buy Research Labs asap when Plastic teched, and then went Aesthetics all the way to Flourishing of the Arts, which gives +33% culture to cities with Great Wonders (as all 10 of mine did) Absolutely key to a maxed out World's Fair.
So, I did things a little differently than in a normal science focused game (did not finish Tradition until way way late during Worlds Fair, did not pursue Rationalism past Secularism until Worlds Fair) but going for the growth (Liberty, happiness policies in various trees, Piety opener for Shrines/Temples with feed the world), culture (early Representation, Patronage opener for Forbidden Palace to help pass Cultural Heritage Sites, Aesthetics) and enough Science to stay fast (all the growth policies, Rationalism opener and Secularism, Commerce opener for Big Ben to speed Research Labs) seemed to work out well as far as I am concerned.
During the World's Fair, I was pumping out Social Policies every 3 turns or so. I made sure to go down Piety to a Reformation belief Glory of God to be able to buy Great Writers with faith before the World's Fair ended. With those bought Great Writers and all the Great Writers from early Writer's Guild and free GWs from finishing Liberty and Leaning Tower of Pisa, I literally got EVERY possible happiness policy possible before the World's Fair ended. After mega-expansion, I was only able to get 4 more policies (1 by finishing International Games) which I used 2 on to finish Exploration and find the hidden antiquity sites.
4) Religion
As Acken postulated, happiness beliefs are NOT needed, and seemed to be a common mistake among the original gauntlet entrants. Early shrines, faith huts. and a Religious city state friendship/alliance or two is enough to get a religion early enough to matter without too much difficulty. You will be swimming in happiness at game end on Chieftain. (700+ at the very end for me)
Fertility Rites as a pantheon, Tithe as Founder belief (Gold that can buy food buildings later), Feed the World as belief 1, Swords into Plowshares as belief 2, and reliquary for more Great People as extra belief are all solid and optimal I think in this gauntlet. Reformation belief to buy Great Writers with faith before World's Fair ends and any type of great person you want later also a key.
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Have to run for now. Will discuss tech order, build orders, wonders, and other game specifics for my entry here soon.
)
) or getting too much tourism, almost won by cultural. I needed to gift the AI some cities filled with GWs. 
1st Acken - 19,619 points
2nd Memoryjar -19,393 points
3rd vadalaz - 18029 points
